From: Nick Hilliard (nick@quay.ie)
Date: 07/05/93


From: nick@quay.ie (Nick Hilliard)
Subject: Re: [Q] effect of -m486 switch for GCC?
Date: Mon, 5 Jul 1993 17:33:14 GMT

Andreas Lemke (Andreas.Lemke@arbi.informatik.uni-oldenburg.de) wrote:
: I am wondering what software compiled with the -m486
: switch does on a 386 processor. I just compiled kernel pl10
: unintentionally with that switch although I do have a 386 cpu.
: But it seems to work!
: And I want to use lib 4.4.1 in the future which according to
: the announcement was compiled for 486 machine. Is this a risk?

The -486 flag in gcc produces 386 compatible code that works marginally
faster on 486 chips (some say in the region of 5%). All things considered,
it probably wouldn'y do any harm to compile all programs with -486 - The
size difference isn't particularly large, and it's worth it for applications
that just need that extra bit of speed

Nick

-- 
| Nick Hilliard                  | e-mail:   nick@quay.ie                   |
| Quay Financial Software,       | Phone:    [+353] 1 6612377               |
| Ferry House, Lower Mount St,   | Fax:      [+353] 1 6607592               |
| Dublin 2, Ireland.             | Opinions: I think; therefore I disclaim. |